Wind and Fire
by smallpaperstars
Summary: Lily is fire-bright, beautiful, and mesmerizing to watch. Bellatrix is just the opposite-cold and perfect as the winter wind. When James falls in love with both of them, how is he to choose between them? Flame cannot live in wind, and air is devoured by fire. Written for the Love Triangle Competition.


**Written for the Love Triangle Competition. The characters given me were James/Lily/Bellatrix prompts were wind and firewhiskey. Pay attention to the theme of opposites. Whenever heat or fire or alcohol is mentioned, it represents Lily whenever wind or cold is mentioned, it means Bella. Author's note : Bella is slightly OOC, as in she isn't at this point a Death Eater.**

Prelude: The beginning of the piece; the part that sets the mood.

Lily made him feel happy, hopeful and maybe just a little bit drunk.

But Bellatrix was the wind. Bella buffeted against the consciousness of his waking dreams; and haunted his days like an aerial ghost; and stole across his face so softly that he he didn't notice the chill until he was frozen.

{~}

_Theme One _: The first introduction of a continuous motif that runs throughout the passage. Introduces conflicts like atonalities or modulation.

They are drunk and yelling. The world spins. The dimly lit room zooms in out in out in out of focus. His eyes are a maverick telescope. The single naked bulb stringing down from the ceiling pitches about like a seabird in a storm. Shadows dance like furtive shamans.

"You and your head, Potter," Lily shouts drunkenly. Her face is suddenly too close and the thickness of her breath is overwhelming. "Like a love triangle, you me and your gigantic fat head stuck up your gigantic fat – "

"Oh shut it," he bellows. "You're one to talk about heads, tossing yours at any male who strides past – "

"I don't, I don't, take it back!" she screams. Mascara runs and blurs freely, like the firewhiskey they spilled on the bar earlier, like her voice fills the room now, one word shrieking at the next. "I hate you, take it back – "

And suddenly the shaman shadows are drunk too and stumbling up beside her, looming over him. He is overwhelmed. The liquid courage deserts him in the face of these monsters. It is too much too much too much and the room spins. The shadows are sobbing unintelligible, the shadows are in her voice. He lurches out the door. Lily's voice trails after him like a banner aflame with alcohol.

The firewhiskey burns like her hair. He hates it, hates the blaze, hates the twin flames of liquor and Lily – one so hungry and the other so bright. And yet he needs it. Needs the dulling cauterization firewhiskey offers. Needs the awakening warmth Lily provides.

Maybe fire burns too hot, he muses. He's always been a philosophical drunk.

{~}

_Interlude_: A short piece inserted between two larger pieces. It contains traces of the first theme and hints of the second; a breathing space.

He's been living alone since Lily, in a flat without air conditioning. It is not hot. It is not cold. If temperature was a color, it would be beige.

Once in a while he'll brave the streetlight soaked sidewalks to enter the Leaky Cauldron, which is just down the street (if he can't feel one burn, he'll seek out the other). He's a stereotypical bleeding heart and Sirius does not hesitate to inform him of this when he visits. "She's a _girl_, mate. You're _James Potter_. Not some medieval poet wasting away for his lady love."

"Call me Shakespeare," says James. He is irritated at Sirius...of course he doesn't understand, he's never felt the flames of passion.

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? No, because a summer's day is not a bloody _idiot_. C'mon, mate, let's go play Quidditch. You need a different sort of ballgame."

James sighs.

{~}

_Cantata_: A song celebrating as in a religious ceremony. Praising the beauty and glory of the heavenly beings.

After playing Quidditch, Sirius tries his best to rouse James from his depression. "So, my cousin's coming over in a bit. Single. You ought to meet..."

James stands. "I'll let you two..."

Both sentences are left dangling, frozen. A gust of wind billows onto their faces and a tall woman stands before them. James thinks that if the winter wind became a woman, it would look like this. She has hair as black as a starless night, with skin that looks almost unnatural in its perfection. Her eyes are like the eye of the hurricane – calm but with a hint of turbulence just out of sight.

She strides over. "Bella," she says. Her voice is raspy like a cat's paw. "You must be James."

"Hello," he says. They stand there awkwardly.

James gives himself a mental shake and reaches out to shake her hand. Bella's long fingers are stone cold. "Pleased to meet you," he offers. "Fancy a drink?"

{~}

_Theme Two_: Introduction of a theme that is in opposition to the first theme. Provides contrast.

No matter how much she drinks, Bella always remains sober. If anything, instead of getting fired up with intoxication, the cold edge that is always evident becomes even sharper. The chill in her laugh turns downright frigid and unkind. There is always a look in her eyes that reminds him of a snowflake caught in a blizzard just inches from the ground, reluctant to touch down. Firewhisky ignites no sparks within her.

At first he welcomes the winter. It is steady. Lily was unpredictable, but Bella is constant. But as time passes – as he spends more time with her, when he moves in – he realizes that winter also means no day, only an eternal night of cold winter winds. He is buried in snow.

It is months later that he finally abandons the alcohol approach and tries lighting the fire himself.

"Why can't you just be honest with yourself and admit that you hate me?" he shouts. Shouting feels good, even if it feels like whistling down the wind.

"Because I don't." And just like that, the air is tinged with bitter frost. "I feel absolutely nothing towards you, James Potter. You are a nonentity to me. Now walk out of my flat. Never come back. Ever." Each word a silver outlined snowflake. Defined. No emotion.

He is a hurricane as he walks out. The summer night is cold: it sinks through his shirt, soaks him to the bone. The wind is so very cold.

{~}

Finale: The conclusion.

Hopeless romantic that he is, James goes out for a drink. Without ice.

In the bar mirror, he glimpses flame. He turns around and sees Lily Evans walking away. A spark lands on his dormant heart, on the icebound tinder that had lain so long under snow. He gets up and follows her.

Though a story about lost love, the true tragedy of this tale is this: James Potter loved the fire and cherished the wind, but he never learned to tell the difference. He never learned that to have one is to lose the other (for there is no fire in the face of wind, nor wind in the breath of fire), although they must always remain incomplete. He never learned that to love is to choose the flame or the tempest.

**Part of my point with this was to twist perceptions of the characters. Bellatrix is not meant to be portrayed as some mindless evil robot, but someone who has just made themselves unreachable. In fact, it was James that I ended up disliking. Jily is my OTP, but sometimes his snarky womanizing gets on my nerves. So in this particular fic, he evolved into a guy who is just looking for a beautiful woman, without distinguishing between them even though they are opposites. He wants both heat and cold, but he can't have both.**

**Anyways, I did the best with the prompts and characters given XD **

**Reviews are so appreciated it's ridiculous. Even if you hated it, please tell me why (although please don't be mean about it :))!**


End file.
